Wednesday, March 28, 2012 Quartzsite Az.

Today was an interesting day as we took a day trip to Quartzsite Az.  Quartzsite is a sleepy little desert town in western Arizona, near the California border.  At least it is sleepy most of the time.  However, when the weather in the north starts to turn cold, snowbirds head south and about 150,000 of them end up camping in Quartzsite.

Normally the population of Quartzsite is around 3500, and taking care of this many visitors for several months every year, has taken some interesting twists and turns.  For a town with 3500 citizens, there is a large number of RV parks or campgrounds here.  They cater to a small number of permanent residents and then fill up during the winter months.  The campgrounds are only a small part of the accomodation picture however.  In addition, the federal government owns thousands of acres of desert land around Quartzsite and thousands of the visitors chose to drive out into the desert, park their RVs, and spend the winter there without any ties to the civilization grid.  A typical "campsite" in the desert looks something like this:

Or this:

Suffice to say amenities are not the strong suit here.  There are several attractions that bring thousands of RVers here to the desert.  The winter weather is generally mild, the government either charges nothing, or very little to stay on the desert land, and the real attractions are the RV show in January that attracts upwards of 1,000,000 people, the hobby craft and gem show in early February, and the Rock and Roll Classic Car show that runs along with the gem show.  All this activity takes place in the "big top", a huge tent erected in Quartzsite just for the purpose of housing this event.  This is an amazing phenomenon that is a "must see" for all true RVers.  Linda and I are thinking that this coming winter is probably going to be our turn.  She actually has her desert "site" already picked out, subject to change of course.

Our purpose today was to scope out the area, and get our feet wet in anticipation of our journey there next fall.  We will keep you posted as we plan this adventure.

It has been a busy and tiring last couple of days.  Our last post was on Sunday and at that time we were in El Paso Texas.  Monday morning, after jousting with Pilot/Flying J, we headed further west, through New Mexico, and into Arizona.  After driving the full width of Texas the previous couple of days, the trip through New Mexico and Arizona was like doing a wind spring, and the miles just rolled by and we found ourselves in Casa Grande Az. by early evening.  Earlier in the day, we had called our friends Byran and Billie who live in Casa Grande during the winter and arranged to have dinner with them Monday night.  Byran suggested we stay at Fiesta Grande RV park in Casa Grande for the night.  This turned out to be a good suggestion, particularly since they have a wonderful dog run area with REAL grass, fenced in, and a bunch of other puppies for them to play with.  Needless to say, Webster and Kassy had a great time playing with their new friends.

We also had a great time with Byran and Billie at their home, with great food and a fun time with all who attended dinner last night.  Linda and I returned to the coach tired, full and relaxed.  Thank you Byran and Billie for hosting us.

Tuesday morning, we go up, took the pups to play, and then packed up in preparation for the short hop up to Phoenix and our destination there, Royal Palm RV Resort.

This is a very nice resort park with all the usual amenities.  Our site is large and we are comfortable.  Tomorrow we are going to drive over to Quartzsite to scope out the territory in anticipation of staying there next winter.

Not everything was wonderful in our world on Sunday as we went round and round with the manager of the Flying J over how they were charging our diesel fuel on our card, but I won't get into that right now.  I will say that it took many phone calls and took until Monday night before Pilot finally got it straightened out.

Nancy Reagan Movie

It has been announced that Jane Fonda will be playing the part of Nancy Reagan in a new movie.  As a Vietnam vet, I have a real problem with the likes of Ms. Fonda playing a true patriot such as the heroic wife of a one of the greatest presidents ever.   I'm certain there will be formal protests of this move and I encourage all to participate in those protests.

Sunday March 25, 2012, West Texas

Today is Sunday, March 25, and sad to say, we had to leave our friends at Scenic View and move on down the highway towards Phoenix Az.

Leaving such a restful and beautiful place is difficult, but we have a schedule to keep on this trip, and so we go. We departed Lone Star TX around 1:30 yesterday and headed west, towards Dallas/Ft. Worth. We are not trying to burn up the highway on this leg, so we ended up in Abilene Tx. last night, staying at our second favorite destination, Flying J, pulling in around 8 PM. We had a bit of a catastrophe yesterday when we stopped at a road side picnic area and took the kids out for a walk. Apparently Governor Perry was so busy campaigning earlier this year, and didn't have time to mow the grass at the picnic area here. As a result, the kids got their fur full of sticky weeds and Linda and I spent about an hour cleaning them up. Poor kids were really good though and got rewarded with extra treats as a result.

We were hungry when we pulled in, and after getting parked, we took off to locate a mexican restaurant we had found on the GPS. After a 20 mile round trip, including finding the "closed" restaurant, we ended up eating at the Denny's at the Flying J. Oh well! Of course, we did get to watch THE Ohio State Buckeyes basketball team knock off #1 seed Syracuse. Go Buckeyes. Up next, either Tarheels, or Kansas. Either way, final four baby!!!

Although, Abilene is the prettiest town that I've ever seen, and the women here don't treat you mean, it is now Sunday morning and we are getting ready for the next leg of our journey which will take us out in the west Texas town of El Paso. I intend to fall in love with a mexican girl at Rosa's cafe'!

More later!

Another Day in Paradise Monday March 19, 2012

Today is Monday here in east Texas. Yesterday whizzed by so as to hardly even notice its coming and going. However, it stayed here long enough for us to enjoy some beautiful weather, to lay in the clover, to soak up the sunshine, and to watch the puffy clouds drift by. In particular, the pups really enjoyed the day. The figured out very quickly that they could relax in the clover with the cool ground and the warm sun creating a perfect balance of comfort.

We are still here in Lone Star Texas, about 2 hours east of Dallas. East Texas is a beautiful area with rolling hills, green grass and beautiful trees. Lone Star is a small town with population of about 1600 really nice people (and from what I hear, a couple of old grouches). Lone Star has one stop light, two gas stations, one grocery store and 8 baptist churches. Linda and I attended South Union Missionary Baptist Church yesterday then spent the rest of the day relaxing and catching up on sleep lost during the mad rush through Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas and into Texas the other day.

Last night our hosts here at Scenic View Campground

http://www.scenicviewmarina.com/

invited us to dinner at a local mexican restaurant and we dined on enchiladas, tortillas and other tasty cuisine along with some other friends. A good time was had by all.

Today, being Monday, we had few plans, especially since the weather forecast was for strong winds and heavy rain. So far (at 3:30) we have had some breezes, a couple of sprinkles, and some clouds, but mostly blue skies and sun. Once again we spent the day relaxing and recharging our batteries.

A Journey

In the year 550 BC, the chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu said, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Well, that covers a thousand mile journey, but I was beginning to wonder what it would take to get an 1100 mile journey going! Our original plans this month were to leave Ohio on Wednesday, March 14. However, because our motorhome was in storage up until the Sunday before that, we really didn't have time to get going until the afternoon of Thursday the 15th. Since we had reservations for Saturday the 17th in Texas, we decided to push ourselves a bit and traveled to Franklin Kentucky on Thursday, arriving there about 11 PM. As is our habit, we stopped at a convenient Flying J truck stop for the night, where I and the bed became as one for the rest of the night. We got up about 8 on Friday morning and went into the Denny's located at the Flying J. After breakfast we fired up the coach, aired up the bags, and headed southwest towards Tennessee and Arkansas with our goal being the Flying J in Texarkana. We expected to stay the night there and finish the last hour and a half of our journey to Lone Star Texas on Saturday morning. As luck would have it, we ran into a lengthy delay due to construction on I45, and finally arrived at our destination about 11 PM. After another night sleep, we woke up refreshed, and while taking the pups for a walk in the parking lot, came across an interesting sight:



A trailer full of giant animals including a chicken, a horse, a hippo, some sort of griffin thing, and other assorted animals that, apparently the driver had to have along on his trip with him, sort of like a modern day Noah, if you will.


We left Texarkana and after a short drive through east Texas, we arrived at Scenic View Marina and RV park in Lone Star Texas. If you are wondering why we worked so hard to get here, this is the reason:



After our arrival here, Linda and I got into the car and headed down the road about 5 miles to David Beard's Catfish Village:



If you like farm raised catfish, or even think you might, you owe it to yourself to someday try David Beard's Catfish Village. They have really good catfish filets in an awesome batter, along with cole slaw, tomato relish, tartar sauce, a really nice cocktail sauce, and it is all you can eat. I may be hungry again, sometime next week!!

Tomorrow is Sunday, and we will be going to church at South Union Missionary Baptist Church. After that there is plenty more relaxation in store for these weary travelers, with more adventures to come. See you next time.

To toast or not to toast..........

Ok, so we are out to dinner a couple of weeks ago with our youngest son Glenn and his wife, our daughter-in-law, Janet, and after we sit down and everyone pulls out their I-phones and Blackberries, and checks emails, text messages, instant messages, and facebook status updates, we start a conversation. Naturally, one of the first subjects to come up was toasters, and toaster slots. What? You don’t talk about toaster slots at the dinner table? How boring! Anyway, the conversation centered on four slot toasters and the ubiquitous slot label, “single slice”, and the associated arrow designating that particular slot to be used for toasting a single slice. Now, this subject begs at least two questions: first, why do you have to use a particular slot for cooking or toasting a single slice, and what would happen if you fail to follow these very explicit instructions?

Second, since there is a particular slot labeled for a single slice, one would first assume that is where the first slice would be inserted if you are actually toasting more than one slice, but where do you insert the second slice? Now, there is a real question!!

Let’s talk about the ramifications of inserting a single slice into a slot other than the one labeled “single slice”. I mean, will the toaster just stop working? Or even worse, will it explode? Being a conformist, I have always used the labeled slot, but now I am questioning that procedure. Does that make me a wimp? Should I just close my eyes, and insert that single slice of Wonder Bread into any random slot? Should I just step off that cliff without knowing what lies below? This is a major, major consideration that quite frankly, I am not ready to make.

Now let’s talk about the order of insertion. If you look at the top of your multi-slice toaster, and locate the “single slice” slot, it is typically in located towards the center. If the slots are numbered (left to right while facing the darkness dial), from 1 to 4 (assuming you have a 4 slot toaster), then the single slot is usually the second slot in from the left. My procedure has always been to insert the first slice into the single slice slot, and then the second slice into slot number 3 which is the slot to the right of the single slice slot. Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with this. Actually, I originally assumed that it was pretty much standard procedure and that everyone did it that way. Boy was I wrong as I was duly informed by my family. At the very least, I was advised that there are several ways to insert the slices including the first slice into slot 2 (i.e. single slice slot), and then the second slice into slot 4!! To me that is just amazing. I have never tried that procedure, but in my mind it would lead to total failure with the toasting being totally unacceptable, with toast being either too dark, too light, or unevenly toasted. You ask me why I believe this and I tell you that it falls into the same category as believing that you HAVE to use the single slice slot for a single slice.

The real question moving forward is whether I will plow new ground by trying a single slice in other than the single slice slot, or even more daring, will I try multiple slices in some random order of insertion. This is going to require a lot of thought.

Speaking of thought, have you ever wondered why there are even toasters that have more than two slots? I mean, how do you even butter up more than two slices after they are toasted, without the slices getting too cold to melt the butter!

An interesting new product

Anytime I travel in the motorhome I take an LCD projector with me. I do this for several reasons. First, I use the projector in my work to give seminars on electrical safety. Second, I use the projector for viewing my photos. Third I like to project movies on the side of my motorhome for friends and family to enjoy, and finally, once a year the group I camp with gets together to watch the Ohio State Buckeyes play the Penn State Nittany Lions and we use the projector to view the football game on a large screen.

I recently became aware of a new product on the market that attracted my interest. The Benq Joybee GP1 Mini Projector. On the surface this is a very clever tool, weighing in at 1.4 lbs. and fitting in the palm of your hand.



Anytime you can reduce the size and weight of the equipment you carry in your RV it is an advantage and this device showed a lot of promise in those areas so I got hold of one to see if it lives up to its promise and if it also provided an image suitable for the above uses.

Being a typical male, when I received my projector, I took it out of the box, plugged it in and fired it up without looking at any of the instructions. At first I was puzzled by the lack of tactile feedback from the control buttons on the top of the projector until I realized that the buttons are sensor type and there is an audible click when you "press" the button. Once I realized this, the control interface was very pleasant. The first thing I did was connect the projector to my computer to verify that I could use my powerpoint presentations. Benq provides a cable that plugs into the back of the projector an terminates at the other end with a USB plug and a set of RCA jacks. I plugged the USB connector into my computer and it quickly recognized the projector and my desktop screen appeared on the projected image. One thing I noticed very quickly was that there is no zoom adjustment and what you see is what you get as far as size is concerned. You do have a focus adjustment and there is a software keystone setting, but if the picture size is not right, you have to move the projector or the viewing screen.



Before I continue with my observations on the operation of the projector, it became obvious that one way they made the projector smaller is by moving the DC power supply out of the projector and putting it inline in the power cord. On my regular projector the power cord is just a power cord. On the Joybee, the cord has a fairly large "block" halfway up which is the DC power supply for the projector. You can see these differences in the photo above, and please don't misunderstand, I'm not complaining about this necessary component, just commenting about where it got put.

All in all, this device is a nice piece of equipment. I found it is necessary to use the included remote control in order to take advantage of features I need or want to use, particularly the direct reading USB port, but that is not a major problem.

When I was doing side by side comparisons with my original projector I noticed that the Benq device did not get very hot while my Optima was very hot. The side by side brightness on the screen was comparable.

I like this device and will be using it in my work. I would like to see them provide a carrying case for all the parts I need including the cords and cables. That would make use much more convenient. I'm thinking the ideal use for this projector is going to be when I make sales calls in a customer's office because it can be used with no other equipment and a USB jump drive loaded. I will also be using the projector in the motorhome to watch movies projected on a screen. This seems to be an ideal way to get large screen video without the investment in a big screen TV. Admittedly at about five hundred bucks the projector is pricey, but considering the life expectancy of the lamp is 20000 hrs. much of this might be made up in bulb replacement cost alone.